Healthcare diagnostics laboratories use diagnostic instruments, such as automated diagnostic analyzers, for testing and analyzing samples. Known automated diagnostic analyzers use various solutions or liquids such as reagents, wash solutions, triggers, diluents, etc. to perform the diagnostic analysis procedures. These liquids are commonly used throughout the analysis procedures and, therefore, the analyzers typically have one or more onboard containers or tanks that hold the liquids. To refill the onboard tanks, smaller bottles or containers of the solution or liquid are fluidly coupled to the tanks via screw caps with dip tube assemblies. The liquid contents are then pumped from the containers, via the dip tubes assemblies, to the respective onboard tanks. However, this process of installing and uninstalling screw caps and inserting and removing dip tube assemblies into/from bulk solution containers is messy and tedious. Also, some automated diagnostic analyzers include multiple onboard tanks for storing different liquids. Thus, there may be multiple dip tube assemblies for the onboard tanks, where each of the dip tube assemblies corresponds to a certain onboard tank. Therefore, it can be imperative to connect the correct dip tube to the correct container of liquid. Otherwise, the wrong liquid can be mistakenly pumped into the wrong onboard tank, thereby compromising the integrity of the analysis procedures.
Some known container connection assemblies receive a liquid container in an upside down orientation and include a piercing probe that is inserted into the container to drain the contents. However, the piercing probes are exposed and can be dangerous to operators who are constantly inserting containers into the connection assemblies. Further, these connection assemblies can mistakenly receive the wrong containers having the wrong liquid and, thus, they also ultimately suffer from the above drawbacks.
Certain examples are shown in the above-identified figures and described in detail below. In describing these examples, like or identical reference numbers are used to identify the same or similar elements. The figures are not necessarily to scale and certain features and certain views of the figures may be shown exaggerated in scale or in schematic for clarity and/or conciseness. Additionally, several examples have been described throughout this specification. Any features from any example may be included with, a replacement for, or otherwise combined with other features from other examples.